Kelly was the ideal mix of sweet and sour. I thought of her trip the year before. She’d gone to Thailand with a group from school. To minister to AIDS orphans in the countryside. I’d saved all her e-mails. Printed them out. Tacked them to the wall. The orphans are soooooooooo cute. I want to take all of them home. But I’ll settle for my six favorites.
But now the sweetness was suffused with sorrow. I could see it. How hard she had to struggle to maintain her sense of self. To not succumb to unadulterated grief. She didn’t want to do that. At least in front of me. She was too proud to lose control.
I hoped she had the sense to cry her heart out when I wasn’t there.
Daddy, she said gravely once I’d sat down. We have to have a funeral.
Oh dear, I said. Do we have to talk about this now?
By which you mean ‘at all.’
She was right.
Okay, I said. Why?
Funerals are for the living, she said.
I’m not sure I agree entirely. But let’s say I do. I’m living. I don’t want one.
But you don’t count. You’re a curmudgeon.
It was hard to argue with her logic.
Who does? I asked. She alienated everyone she knew. Who’s going to show up?
I regretted saying it before it got out of my mouth. Tears appeared in Kelly’s eyes. She glared at me.
Mommy had a lot of friends, she said. They’ll be there. You keep avoiding the house. You don’t take the phone calls. You don’t know.
Damn it. This was unfair. She had encouraged me to go to the poker game.
Who are all these people who’ve called? I asked.
Everybody, she said.
She recited a list of names. Most I’d never heard before.
Amazing. That so many old friends long cast aside in favor of the Monster would care, would call. Commiserate. Show up.
I was helpless in the face of Kelly’s onslaught.
All right, I said. We’ll have a memorial service, okay? I still think she’d have wanted cremation.
The tears came back.
The word. Cremation. The reality of it. The finality.
I went to Kelly. I put my arms around her. We hugged. She cried.
I must confess I cried a bit myself.
It was good to have company.
67.
Laura called me Tuesday morning. Woke me up.
Hi, Rick. How are you holding up?
Not great.
I’m sorry, Rick. Stupid question.
I didn’t reply.
I felt that I was being mean. But I didn’t have the energy to be polite.
Listen, she said, there are a couple of things I’d like to talk to you about.
I’m all yours. Ears. I’m all yours and ears.
I think it would be better to talk in person.
Her voice was soothing.
Okay, I said. Whatever. How about lunch?
I’m not sure I have time for lunch. Can you come by the morgue?
Hard to pass up that invitation.
I’m sorry. It’s just the office to me. Sometimes I forget.
No, no. Just joking. Sometimes I think of my office as a morgue too. Come to think of it, most days.
She didn’t laugh. She had a sweet soft way with a laugh, and I wanted to hear it.
But I thought I heard her smile.
I promised to show up.
It took a few minutes of concentration to remember. What the last few days had brought. What the day would bring.
I shook my head. It hurt. I contemplated turning over. Putting the pillow over my head. Going back to the soft and unpredictable world of dreams. Who knew what wonders might await me there? But. I had an appointment. At the morgue. Jesus.
I hauled myself out of bed. I dragged myself into some barely presentable clothes. I opened the pill drawer. At least I didn’t have to lock them up anymore. Life was handing me small consolations.
I took twice my normal doses. I didn’t bother calling Sheila to ask. A little self-medication. Nothing wrong with that. I’d only get her endless voice mail message anyway. And I had to do something, to get me through this glorious day.
I left the house.
When I got to Laura’s office, she was not alone.
Rick, she said, nodding to a rumpled gray thing on the couch, you know Detective Harwood?
Yes, I said, we’ve met.
He nodded. I nodded. He didn’t extend a hand.
There’d been a change since he’d been at my house. His hostility had grown. Thrived. I saw contempt. Something had tipped him over.
The fluorescent light didn’t flatter him. He had the pasty skin, the bored demeanor of the lifelong cop.
The couch had seen better days too.
You didn’t tell me we’d have company, I said to Laura.
An effort to lighten the suddenly somber mood.
Laura smiled uncomfortably, shuffled some papers on her desk. I tried to see what they were, but the angle wasn’t good.
The metal desk was gray. Like the metal chair in which I sat. Like the feeling in the room.
We have some results we’d like to share with you, Rick. From the autopsy.
I didn’t want to hear. Whatever it was that had killed Melissa made no difference to me. Overdose, heart attack, ennui. She was gone. She’d never really had a chance. Whatever those demons were that she’d so skillfully concealed from me had gotten her in the end.
Fire away, I said.
Well, the first part is what we thought, Rick. What you thought.
Yes?
Alcohol, 0.4. Off the charts, for you and me.
Speak for yourself, I said, half-heartedly attempting another joke.
She didn’t smile.
Not unusual in a long-term alcoholic, she said. But there was lots of other stuff.
She began to read from the report. They’d put together the blood results with the pharmacological detritus. Pill containers. When she’d got them. What was left in them. They figured she’d ingested, at a minimum, 50 milligrams of Xanax; 800 mg Effexor; 100 mg Ambien; Adderall 225 mg.
A listener less inured to the ways of the chronically addicted might have marveled at the quantities. Wondered how she could have stayed alive long enough to take it all.
But I knew better.
That doesn’t sound like all that much, for her, I said. Laura looked at me sadly.
